Actually he did provide a new version now didn't he. Calling it a scam is actually hyperbole the situation to be fair. Looking at the quality from gameplay,artwork and animation it's actually considered pretty very good. I won't deny that 2 years for something that's not even halfway done is behind schedule, but not everyone is good at programming (i come from IT background myself welp) and he is just an indie dev from what I see. Though I am not sure about his full situation like why he didn't hire extra help with that big monthly wage etc, but seeing he did update it it's not really a scam no?
It's hard to determine how much extra stuff need for a cost unless you're the dev themselves and most details about development spend were to kept secret between company, it is their right to do and decide should they show certain record for public, which have a high risk for both way of good/bad respond along with social criticism.
Even tho keep those record a secret is the most common thing for work in team does but the lack of materialized outcome to shown for their backer which not balanced with time they took are no doubt - to lead for a suspect of scamming as well.
What we seeing now are what left of Christ Armin done works for him in his part which I assumed that he already done all of them and to be implement in the next fixed or version, and no question about his amazing animator skill as it already topnotch, this might cost some pretty bucks out of ViperV but sadly that Christ fall short as he getting busier with his own campaign and can no longer provide optimal work to ViperV anymore - leading to the downfall he currently in.
Here is example for a real life spend of my family business. (These currency are used for easier understanding - based on my country, not the sustain rate for some actual other country)
I my own run the retail store and have only one stuff for helping hand, my shop didn't do that well but certainly sustainable.
My average sold each day were about 100~150$, I need to paid a stuff about 15$ a day
Each month my shop recorded sell rate about 3,000 ~ 4,000$ in average based on economy situation.
- 450$ labor cost
- 150$ public utility cost (electricity, water supply)
- 500~1,000$ living spend and other needed (internet, food, snack, etc.)
- around 30~70% sell price are the cost which I need to pay for the store I ordered from.
When calculate you'll get --- (assumed that I didn't do that bad and set to 50% as avg cost rate)
(4,000 - 50%) - (450 + 150 + 1,000)
2,000 - 1,600
= 400$ avg. net profit / month
If I were to hire another worker with the same labor cost will lead me to 50$ avg. net lose/month if my shop didn't do better, but matter not as my shop didn't do that bad every single month - still the calculated are not that handsome as I expected to be.
-- etc. etc. etc. --
As you can see, a big number - once calculate down to the spending sheet it divide into many table and can easily bite off multi-thousand down to hundred very quick.
But this is just an example for a retail shop like me while game dev might have different cost from me but we still never know how much each dev need to pay their co-worker unless they decide to public those record themselves.
Sadly most patronage artist all over will have to carry these weight of mixed reputation either good or bad, only thing that will kept those patronage goes will only be faith and believe of their fans and only hope that the dev or artist they backed will not came out to be an areshole in the end.
